Entertainment

Providing entertainment

Description

Amusing the public by performing relaxing and/or emotionally releasing diversions.

Context

Entertainment has been a function of society since history began, including such things as the Roman circuses, sporting events, minstrels and plays.

Claim

1. Entertainment offers a safety valve for pent-up aggression. 2. It satisfies people's emotional needs. 3. It provides the relief needed to enable people to face the demands of modern life. 4. It can convey significance and meaning for life. 5. It can be a form of education.

Counter-claim

1. Entertainment is propaganda. 2. It encourages people to escape from the real world. 3. It gives people impractical advice. 4. It can seduce the weak-willed into lives of crime and immorality. 5. It furthers capitalist industries in which the workers, both those who come before the public and those who do not, are exploited; for example, athletes and performers, trainers, technicians, actors, writers, musicians and others.